WHAT DATA SHOULD YOU MONITOR TO IMPROVE YOUR DIRECT MARKETING CAMPAIGN
When you notice a visible rise in sales or leads, it’s tempting to conclude your direct marketing campaign was a success. However, your campaigns may be more successful or unsuccessful than they look on the surface. Marketers that take the effort to build up precise monitoring mechanisms so they can reliably assess direct marketing results are the wisest.
This guide is for you if you are not sure how to effectively assess response rates or if you’re frustrated by wondering what your direct marketing’s return on investment is. Learn how to set up trustworthy monitoring tools, identify your success metrics, track the outcomes of your campaign, and compare your performance to your goals by following the steps below.
When it comes to monitoring your direct marketing campaign, the golden rule is to make sure that each point of contact given such as phone number, URL, coupon code, etc. is unique and trackable. You will not be able to attribute sales or leads to the campaign otherwise. To trace purchases and leads back to your direct marketing pieces, use one of the tracking systems listed below.
● Trackable URL’s
URLs may be tracked in two ways:
The first is generic, where everyone receiving the mail has the same URL. You may track the performance of your direct marketing campaign by customising the URL. The second method is to use unique URLs for each person who receives the message. This allows you to see who is visiting on an individual basis. If your call-to-action needs them to read specific material or if you have a unique offer that can be claimed online, besides just the homepage of your website, this will be useful for you.
● Voucher Codes & Coupons
Make coupon codes that are exclusive to your direct marketing campaign. By measuring the particular number of times the discount code was used, you can measure how many people respond. This method can be utilised when you have an offer. This is almost always a good idea.
● Time Isolation Technique
If you do not have any other marketing initiatives running, simply measure the KPI (such as new customers, sales, or inquiries) before and after the campaign, and compare the results. This is the most straightforward option, although it is not always correct or suitable. When you are not doing any other marketing and new clients aren’t fluctuating too much naturally, this can be useful.
● Trackable phone numbers
If your direct marketing campaign includes phone numbers, consider implementing call forwarding and monitoring phone numbers. These enable you to utilise unique phone numbers that redirect to your actual phone number, allowing you to know who is contacting you as a consequence of your direct marketing campaign. There are several businesses that provide this service. This can be used when you wish to track phone inquiries and give a phone number as contact information.
● Survey
If none of the above works, simply inquire about how your leads and customers found you. Because some clients will see you through various channels, this is less precise, and it relies on trust and a big sample size. However, depending on your requirements, it may be sufficient. Use it in combination with or if none of the aforementioned options are available. This works great if you are targeting a limited number of consumers and plan to speak with each one individually.
● Response Rate
Response rate refers to the percentage of persons on your mailing list that responded to your mailer using one of the aforementioned tracking techniques. A response rate of less than one percent is not uncommon if your direct mail piece is offering a costly or sophisticated product. Note that you’ll never have an exact response rate until you track every mode of contact indicated on your mailer.
● Conversion Rate
The percentage of responses that took up the offer in your mailer is your conversion rate, also known as order rate. Businesses that offer lower-cost impulsive items may generally overlook conversion rate since reaction and conversion usually occur simultaneously. Companies with lengthier sales cycles should focus more on their conversion rate than their response rate.
● Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Your cost per acquisition, also known as cost per order or cost per lead, informs you how much each new customer cost you. To decide which marketing channel is the most cost-effective, compare your CPA for direct marketing campaigns to the CPA for your other marketing channels.
● Average Order Size
This metric depicts the average amount of money you made per sale produced by your mailer. It is worth noting that average order size is a metric you may measure before sending out your direct mail campaign just by paying attention to the orders you are already getting. If you do not already have this measure, you should compute it with the data from your direct mail campaign. There may be discrepancies in the average order for a direct mail lead vs a walk-in or web lead.
● Revenue Per Order
Revenue per order is calculated by subtracting the CPA from the average order size to determine how much profit you generated on average from each order.
● Return on Investment (ROI)
ROI may be the most sought-after and helpful KPI. It will tell you how effective your campaign was overall. Any firm may benefit from direct marketing as a marketing technique. However without tracking and measuring your campaigns, you will never know how effectively they are performing.
You may effectively monitor the response to your direct marketing campaign by selecting tracking solutions for each point of contact on your direct marketing. The next step is to decide the key performance metrics you’ll use to assess your direct marketing campaign’s success. To determine whether you met your objectives, look at your internal data as well as data from your campaigns. You will be able to use that data to improve your future direct marketing efforts once you have acquired the capacity to track and measure your campaigns.
